Foucault News

Barker, D.
Ninjas, zombies and nervous wrecks? Academics in the neoliberal world of physical education and sport pedagogy
(2017) Sport, Education and Society, 22 (1), pp. 87-104.

DOI: 10.1080/13573322.2016.1195360

Abstract
Scholars have drawn some damning conclusions on the current state of the academy. They argue that neoliberal developments such as corporatization and privatization are undermining research and teaching quality, disrupting social relations and impacting negatively on the health and well-being of academic staff. Academia is, according to these scholars, coming to be peopled by hypercompetitive and combative ‘ninjas’, cynical and unmotivated ‘zombies’ and jaded and anxious ‘nervous wrecks’. Against this negative depiction of academics, the aim of this paper is to provide an illustration of an alternative identity that is formed and performed within the field of physical education and sport pedagogy (PESP). This illustration is achieved through the presentation and analysis of an account that shows some of the individuals inhabiting the world of PESP. The account is based on autoethnographic research and relies largely on reported speech and reflective notes to build a description of the author, in the early stages of mid-career, working with his colleagues to write a section of this paper. A Foucauldian framework that includes the concepts of governmentality and care of the self is employed to consider how the author becomes a neoliberal subject with some possibilities for resisting technologies of power. The paper is concluded with reflections on the process of resisting and the significance of local socio-political contexts as issues for further discussion. © 2016 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.

Author Keywords
Academia; Autoethnography; Foucault; Neoliberal; Physical education; Sport pedagogy

Index Keywords
career, human, human experiment, identity, male, pedagogics, speech, sport

Khodadadi, M., O’Donnell, H.
UK press and tourist discourses of Iran: a study in multiple realities
(2017) Leisure Studies, 36 (1), pp. 53-64.

DOI: 10.1080/02614367.2015.1085591

Abstract
The aim of this article is to investigate the competing discourses of Iran currently circulating in British society, and their influence on the tourist destination image of that country. A mixed-methods approach was adopted within a social constructionist perspective: this consisted of a Foucauldian discourse analysis of news reports in a range of British broadsheet newspapers, interviews with tourists who had visited Iran, and analysis of travel blogs written by a second group of tourists who had also previously visited the country. The findings show that the leading British broadsheets examined exclusively circulate an extremely negative discourse of Iran-as-Polity, originating in US and mediated by the British political field, whose main components are nuclear issues, danger, hostility and terrorism. Though UK tourists to the country are often drawn there initially by a largely Orientalist discourse of Iran-as-Persia, i.e. as a site of historical monuments, during and post visit, they develop a counter-discourse of Iran-as-Society which concentrates on the modernity of certain aspects of the country and above all the hospitality of its citizens, a discourse which is then further disseminated in the form of travel blogs. The article also mobilises Bourdieu’s concept of academic capital to examine the role of education in providing resources to resist the discourse of Iran-as-Polity. In its range of sources analysed, the article offers a relatively novel approach to investigating the role of media discourse and the internet–the latter framed using Foucault’s ‘genealogical’ approach–in the formation of competing tourist destination images of Iran. © 2015 Taylor & Francis.

Author Keywords
cultural tourism; destination image; discourse; Iran; news media; social media

Bojesen, E.
I/MLEs and the uneven return of pastoral power
(2016) Educational Philosophy and Theory, pp. 1-8. Article in Press.

DOI: 10.1080/00131857.2016.1267604

Editor: I/MLE stands for Innovative/Modern Learning Environments

Abstract
Informed by the work of the work of Michel Foucault, Ian Hunter, and Ansgar Allen, this paper argues that I/MLEs are not the creation of a ‘modern’ or ‘innovative’ learning environment but rather the reclamation of an educational technique that was pioneered en masse almost two centuries ago (and based on practices many centuries older than that), where established pastoral methods were key to shaping particularly formed educated subjects. Drawing on work produced by the OECD, as well as UK and NZ education policies and school building design guidance, this argument couches two claims, the first of which is that whether or not education systems and school buildings are conforming to I/MLE models, the ubiquity of ideologically narrow conceptions of the learning subject are enforced regardless, through subtle or unsubtle means. However, the second claim is that, despite their overarching and unsurprising ideological homogeneity with other more outcome oriented forms of schooling, I/MLEs have the potential to offer a much more substantial formative experience than other schooling systems due to their implicit recovery of the traditional pastoral aspect of education. © 2016 Philosophy of Education Society of Australasia

Author Keywords
disciplinary power; I/MLEs; Michel Foucault; New Zealand education policy; Pastoral power; UK education policy

Teaching English or producing docility? Foucauldian analysis of Pakistani state-mandated English textbooks
Liaquat Ali Channa, Daniel Gilhooly, Abdul Razaque Channa, Syed Abdul Manan, and John Schwieter
Cogent Education Vol. 4 , Iss. 1,2017

Abstract
The scholarship of language education, particularly with reference to learning and use of English, is marked by varieties of English. One may note two broad models: (1) ENL, ESL, and EFL; (2) EIL, ELF, and WEs. Although the scholarship is replete with debates, the debates seem to only construct and maintain that learning English and its use are neutral activities that earn and equip a learner with certain capital rather than make him/her as such. This paper draws upon Foucault’s theories of discourse and disciplinary power. This paper takes Pakistani
state-mandated English textbooks of Grades 1–5 as official documents that contain qualitative data. The qualitative data are analyzed thematically. Two major themes of male body and female body are found which are analyzed and discussed through the Foucauldian lens. The paper holds that learning English and its use perpetuate and produce docility. The paper contends that neither is language a neutral tool nor are its use and learning value-free activities in any of its varieties.

Keywords: Pakistan, English textbooks, primary grades, discourse, disciplinary power, docility

Theisens, H., Hooge, E., Waslander, S.
Steering Dynamics in Complex Education Systems. An Agenda for Empirical Research
(2016) European Journal of Education, 51 (4), pp. 463-477.

DOI: 10.1111/ejed.12187

Abstract
Many policy systems and education systems have grown more complex in the last three decades. Power has moved away from central governments in different directions: upwards towards international organisations, sideways towards private institutions and non-governmental organisations and downwards towards local governments and public enterprises such as schools. Where once we had central government, we now have governance, which can be defined as the processes of establishing priorities, formulating and implementing policies, and being accountable in complex networks with many different actors. Steering in such complex education systems emerges from the activities, tasks and responsibilities of state and non-state actors, operating at different levels and from different positions and often has un-deliberate, un-intentional and un-foreseen consequences. There are many conceptual models that encapsulate this complexity, but this article suggests that there is a real need for empirical research. Without empirical research it remains unknown whether and how steering in complex networks works out in practice, what are its effects and for whom. Moreover, it is only through empirical research that we can find out whether central government has become less dominant, or rather whether its appearance has changed and it has become less visible, but not necessarily less influential. Foucault’s governmentality perspective is a useful notion on which to build such a framework for empirical research which allows for a careful study of the interactions that signify steering. Inspired by Foucault, this article develops a trilogy of assumed conditions for steering to take effect in modern societies. Following this reasoning, ‘something’ first needs to be made thinkable, calculable and practicable by different actors for steering to occur. This trilogy is a promising starting point for empirical research into very specific phenomena which can help us to understand how steering in complex education systems works. © 2016 John Wiley & Sons Ltd

Author Keywords
complexity; education; Governance; governmentality; steering